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Reflect on the diverse reactions during the Nazi era - from resistance heroes to complacent bystanders. Explore this theme in the Holocaust Creative Arts Competition. Find resources and learn about the courage of upstanders, the inaction of bystanders, and the atrocities of perpetrators. Remember the atrocities and lessons of the Holocaust - from prejudice to the consequences of silence. Delve into the roles of bystanders, upstanders, and perpetrators, and the complex nature of their choices.
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Perpetrators,Bystanders & Upstanders This year, The Holocaust Creative Arts Competition invites students to ponder the choices that people made when witnessing persecution during the Nazi era. From heroes such as Sophie Scholl and the White Rose resistance movement to students who harassed their Jewish classmates with impunity, reactions to Nazi power varied widely. Most individuals chose passive conformity. Our resource page, www.jewishcharleston.org/remember, features suggestions of specific resources featuring perpetrators, upstanders, and bystanders during the Holocaust. All entries must include one citation.
The Holocaust The systematic annihilation of six million Jews by the Nazi regime. 2 out of 3 Jews were killed between 1933 and 1945. Although Jews were the primary victims, millions of other innocent people perished, including the mentally and physically disabled, gypsies and homosexuals. As many as 1.5 million children were murdered.
Why study the Holocaust today? • To understand prejudice, racism, and stereotyping. • To remember the dangers of remaining silent and indifferent to others' oppression. • To understand how civilized values can fall apart. • To view victims as people, not a nameless mass
Bystanders, Upstanders, and Perpetrators during the Holocaust This year, our theme focuses on choices that people made when witnessing persecution during the Nazi era. We may disagree over the appropriate category for a given individual or group. Some general guidelines are: • Bystanders: The ordinary people who played it safe by complying with Nazi edicts but avoided overt terrorizing of those targeted for persecution. It can be difficult to divide the bystander from the perpetrator. Is there such a thing as a passive onlooker? Is not taking action a decision, and therefore a form of action? • Upstanders: Those who actively resisted the Nazis in a variety of ways, such as hiding Jews and underground resistance. • Perpetrators: The Nazis and the local population that actively implemented the Final Solution.
Estimate of bystanders, perpetrators, and rescuers during the Holocaust Bystanders (85%) Victims Rescuers (< 0.5%) Perpetrators (< 10%)
Perpetrators:The Nazis and the local population that actively implemented the Final Solution.
A night in the Garden In 1939, 20000 Americans gathered in Madison Square Garden to celebrate the rise of Nazism. Powerful documentary at anightatthegarden.com
We acknowledge receipt of your order for five triple furnaces, including two electric elevators for raising the corpses and one emergency elevator. --from a contract acceptance letter, J.A. Topf & Sons Gas chambers and crematoria were built by German companies who knew exactly what they were building – they even made a profit. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/topf-and-sons-an-ordinary-company
Upstanders Those who actively resisted the Nazis in a variety of ways, such as hiding Jews and underground resistance.
Dr. Seuss, best known for his children’s books, brought atttention to the atrocities of the Nazi regime with powerful political cartoonsMore info at https://library.ucsd.edu/speccoll/dswenttowar/ Theodor Seuss Geisel September 25, 1941
Sophie Scholl and White Rose Movement The White Rose was a non-violent, resistance group in the Third Reich led by students and a professor at the University of Munich. • https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-white-rose-a-lesson-in-dissent • Hans Scholl (left), Sophie Scholl (center), and ChristophProbst (right), leaders of The White Rose resistance organization. Munich, Germany, 1942.
Following the German occupation in 1943, the Muslim Albanian population, in an extraordinary act, refused to comply with the occupier’s orders within the country’s borders. Muslim Albanians who rescued Jews during the Holocaust:https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/besa/pashkaj.asp The family of Hamid Veseli and XhemalVeseli sheltered Jews for nine months, until liberation
Bystanders The Nazis were the murderers, but we were the all too passive accomplices. - David Wyman, Holocaust Scholar
An online exhibition on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website, somewereneighbors.ushmm.org Some Were Our Neighbors Onlookers watch Gestapo officials load Jews onto trucks for deportation
Dachau, Germany Camp prisoners marching through a village. Photo was taken through upstairs window of a private home along the route. Few civilians gave aid to prisoners on the death marches. April 1945, Dachau, Germany.
German civilians, under direction of U.S. medical officers, walk past a group of 30 Jewish women starved to death by SS troops in a 300 mile march across Czechoslovakia.
